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Social Context for Religious Violence in the French Massacres of 1572
A thesis submitted in partial fulfillmentof the requirements for the degree ofMaster of Humanities
By
SHANNON LEE SPEIGHT
B.A., University of Texas at Arlington, 2005
2010Wright State University
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WRIGHT STATE UNIVERSITY
SCHOOL OF GRADUATE STUDIES
July 8, 2010
I HEREBY RECOMMEND THAT THE THESIS PREPARED UNDER MYSUPERVISION BY Shannon Lee Speight ENTITLED Social Context for ReligiousViolence in the French Massacres of 1572 BE ACCEPTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENTOF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF Master of Humanities,
____________________________________Kirsten Halling, Ph.D. Co-Thesis Director
____________________________________Ava Chamberlain, Ph.D. Co-Thesis Director
____________________________________Ava Chamberlain, Ph.D.Director, Master of Humanities Program
Committee on Final Examination
_______________________________Kirsten Halling, Ph.D. Committee Member
_______________________________Ava Chamberlain, Ph.D. Committee Member
________________________________Marie Hertzler, Ph.D. Committee Member
___________________Andrew Hsu, PhD.Dean, School of Graduate Studies
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ABSTRACT
Speight, Shannon Lee. M.HUM, Department of Humanities, Wright State University, 2010.Social Context for Religious Violence in the French Massacres of 1572
The project looks at violence as a social norm during the French massacres of 1572,
causing widespread violence at a popular level, at the heart of which was religious group
identity.The work examines outbreaks of fighting between Catholics and Huguenots starting
in Paris with the St. Bartholomews Day Massacre and spreading to provincial cities in the
following months. Rather than viewing hostility as instigated from the top levels of society,
this works aims to verify that there existed within France an acceptance of aggression that,
encouraged by inflammatory religious rhetoric, resulted in the popular violence of the
massacres. The work examines shared values contributing to a mind-set amongst urban
commonersthattolerated and even valorized expressions of violenceand led to the
enthusiastic approval of brutality during the massacres of 1572. Expanding beyond a simple
explanation of mob mentality, this paper is meant to expose patterns of thoughts and
behaviors that created an opportunity for the masses to express themselves violently.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
I. INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................. 1
II. SIXTEENTH-CENTURY FRANCE: THE REFORMATION AND VIOLENCE ............ 3
Reformation Background .............................................................................................. 3
Pre-Reformation France .................................................................................... 4
Reformation in France ...................................................................................... 9
Huguenot Growth............................................................................................ 12
Cultures of Violence ................................................................................................... 15
Violence in Sixteenth-Century France ............................................................ 17
Religious Rioters ............................................................................................. 19
Goals of Popular Religious Violence .......................................................................... 22
Appropriating Authority ................................................................................. 23
Rites of Purification:Removing the Taint.................................................... 25
Defense of the One True Faith ........................................................................ 28
III. RISING TENSIONS: CATHOLIC-HUGUENOT CONFLICT ...................................... 31
Pure Christians as a Family of Believers .................................................................... 31
Huguenot Concepts of Martyrdom ................................................................. 34
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Catholic Rhetoric: From Print to Pulpit ...................................................................... 36
Demonization of Huguenots ........................................................................... 40
Protestant Women and the Feminization of Society ....................................... 44
Huguenot Insurrection .................................................................................... 47
Massacre at Vassy and the Wars of Religion .............................................................. 49
Lasting Hostilities: The Cross of Gastines.................................................................. 52
IV. ST. BARTHOLOMEWS DAY MASSACRE................................................................ 54
Crowd Organization and Goals ................................................................................... 57
Defense of the Faith ........................................................................................ 59
Purification Rites ............................................................................................ 61
Authority ......................................................................................................... 63
Brutalization .................................................................................................... 64
Beyond Religion ......................................................................................................... 67
Makeup of the Murderers............................................................................................ 69
Resistance and Humanity ............................................................................................ 70
Propagation to the Provinces ...................................................................................... 73
La Charit-sur-Loire (August 24), Saumur (August 28-29), &
Angers (August 28-29) ................................................................................... 74
Meaux (August 25-26) .................................................................................... 76
Orlans (August 25) ........................................................................................ 77
Troyes (September 4) ...................................................................................... 79
Lyon (August 31-September 2) ...................................................................... 83
Bourges (August 26, September 11) ............................................................... 84
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Rouen (September 17-20) ............................................................................... 86
Bordeaux (October 2-3) .................................................................................. 87
Toulouse (October 3-4) ................................................................................... 88
Provinces that Resisted ................................................................................... 90
Reaction to the Massacres ........................................................................................... 91
Lasting Effects ............................................................................................................ 93
V. CONCLUSION .................................................................................................................. 98
VI. BIBLIOGRAPHY .......................................................................................................... 103
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I. INTRODUCTION
During the French Wars of Religion, localized conflicts evolved to engage the entirety of
France in a bloody civil war lasting more than thirty years (1562-1598), encompassing
unfathomable acts of violence like the Saint Bartholomews Day Massacre. The violence of
the massacre commenced on August 24, 1572, lasted nearly two months, encompassed a
dozen towns, and ultimately reshaped the religious makeup of France. The historiography of
the massacre has most often been framed from a top down perspective, viewing the events as
primarily instigated by nobles vying for power.1The weak monarchy certainly left a void and
caused political strife, but to consider the violence of 1572, predominantly perpetrated by
urban commoners, exclusively from the view of the elite is innately limiting. Policies of the
crown alternately persecuting and tolerating Huguenots led to a distrustful Protestant
community and a bitter Catholic populace, but to focus on the royal family ignores the real
perpetrators of the brutality. Viewing the bloodshed as initiated by the masses allows a
different and more comprehensive picture to emerge.
Despite the political assassination that heralded the Saint Bartholomews Day
Massacre, the majority of the bloodshed had its roots in the effects of the Protestant
Reformation. The intense hatred expressed by urban mobs during the violence arose not frompolitical aspirations but a shared set of social values. These sentiments started with the dawn
1See Kathleen ParrowsFrom Defense to Resistance: Justification of Violence During the French Wars ofReligion and the collection of works within for examples of authors focusing on the nobility and peasantry but not on urbancommoners.
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of the Reformation as Catholics and Protestants lashed out at each othersalien symbols and
traditions while battling for the soul of France.
Although historians throughout the centuries have analyzed the St. Bartholomews
Day Massacre of 1572 and its ripple effect in a social context, most historians skim over the
broader culture of violence that allowed for such bloodshed. Urban mob violence acted as a
justifiable course of action amidst a sixteenth-century backdrop that viewed demonstrations
of aggression and capital punishment as the norm. In Medieval Frances violent culture, riots
over taxes and rising food prices were not unheard of, but the introduction of religious
change brought on by the Reformation intensified passions. Efforts by the Huguenots tocarve out a place for themselves led to violent clashes between the two confessions. Printed
propaganda and fiery sermons from ecclesiastics fueled religious tensions to dangerously
high levels. In the face of an intense campaign against heretics, Catholics came to view their
Huguenot neighbors as, at best, an alien entity or, at worst, subhuman.
Viewing the violence of the Saint Bartholomews Day Massacre within the social
context helps to explain the motives of the crowds who participated, as well as the thoughts
behind their behaviors. Although the massacre was more grandiose in terms of its toll on life,
the actions of the urban mob were neither extraordinary nor unique to 1572.
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II. SIXTEENTH-CENTURY FRANCE: THE REFORMATION AND VIOLENCE
Reformation Background
To explain the religious disturbances that occurred in France during the sixteenth
century, it is first necessary to examine the effects of the Protestant Reformation. By the
fifteenth century, the Great Schism had split Christianity into the Roman Catholic Church
and the Eastern Orthodox Church. Regardless of this break, the Catholic Church enjoyed a
position in medieval Europe as the sole unifying form of Christianity prior to the
Reformation.
Starting with Martin Luthers The Ninety-Five Thesesin 1517, the Reformation
drastically changed the religious landscape of Europe. Luther preached that the Bible alone,
Sola Scriptura, was ones only way tosalvation thereby rejecting the authority of the papacy;
but Luther did not go so far as to refute the sacraments or transubstantiation. Luther found
willing allies in the German princes who resented papal authority and tax collection in their
lands. The Scandinavian countries quickly adopted Lutheranism; Swedens King Gustav I
broke with the Church in 1531 over a conflict with a bishop appointment and in 1536, King
Christian III recognized Lutheranism as the official religion of Denmark-Norway.
At the same time, other reformers were beginning to voice similar concerns regarding
the Papacy and the Catholic Church. Huldrych Zwingli preached against the moral corruption
of the clergy and denied transubstantiation in the Swiss canton of Zurich. In March 1536, the
French theologian Calvin published the first edition of hisInstitutes of the Christian
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Religion. Calvins beliefs centered on predestination ideology stressing that Gods grace
alone allowed for salvation, while Gods will decided eternal damnation. Calvinists rejected
most of the Catholic sacraments, leaving only baptism and the Lords Supper in which they
rejected Christs Real Presence stating that communion represented the Lords spiritual
presence. Following increased persecutions in France, John Calvin fled to the Swiss canton
of Geneva, where he established a base for the Reformed Church from which he was able to
support Calvinists in other states. Although the Netherlands were officially part of the Holy
Roman Empire, the northern territories increasingly turned to Protestantism first as
Anabaptist converts, then later as Calvinists under William I, Prince of Orange.Calvinism also reached across Europe to the British Isles. Beginning in the 1530s
Henry VIII began a series of breaks with the papacy including dissolving monasteries and
naming himself the Supreme Head of the Church and clergy of England. Queen Elizabeth I
finalized these reforms by incorporating Catholicism and Calvinist doctrine into the new state
religion of England, Anglicanism. Following a break with their French allies, Scotland
rejected the Catholic Church with the leadership of John Knox in 1560, in favor of a
reformed church drawn primarily from Calvinist doctrine.
Pre-Reformation France
While some of Francesneighbors increasingly embraced Protestantism, the French
populacesrelationship with the Catholic Church did not promote the same large numbers of
converts to the new faith as seen in other countries. Although there were numerous
proponents for reforms within the Catholic Church, France as a whole was less hostile
towards the papacy and not as threatened by Roman influence.
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Roman Catholicism had been the official state religion in most of France since the
beginning of the sixth century with the conversion of Clovis I. Since the thirteenth century
French theologians had asserted that their national church held a privileged position
concerning the papacy, a belief reinforced during the Avignon Papacy (1309 to 1378) in
which seven popes ruled from a papal court in Avignon in southeastern France. During this
time, French interests often dominated the Papacy, which led to substantial concessions by
the Pope to the French crown especially in finances. This partisanship on behalf of the
Church bred discontent amongst other states leading to theWestern Schism that resulted in
years of conflict between papal courts in France and Rome. The Church resolved the schismin 1417, but the years of the so-called Babylonian Captivity of the Church left a scar across
Europe and weakened the authority of the Church.
The Avignon Papacy had helped the French Catholic Church operate under more
autonomous conditions than in other states. In 1438, The Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges
resulted in the so-calledliberts de lEglise gallicane. These Gallican liberties called for a
general church council, with power superior to that of the pope, to be invoked every ten
years, and forbade the papacy from collecting benefices, those endowments set aside for the
maintenance of the clergy, or annates(a payment made to the papal treasury of one year's
revenue of this new benefice).2The Sanction of Bourges also guaranteed the independence of
French cathedral chapters by allowing them to elect their own bishops and abbots, giving the
French church a greater degree of autonomy.3This freedom led to a Church composed
almost exclusively of French ecclesiastics, and ensured the loyalty of the clergy to the French
realm by the time of the Protestant Reformation. While other states used the Reformation as a
2Milton Viorst, The Great Documents of Western Civilization (New York: Bantam Books, 1967), 78.3Carter Lindberg, The European Reformations. 2nd ed. (Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009), 260-261.
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way to refute the power of the Roman papacy and weaken the influence of foreign agents, the
Gallican church was already far enough removed from Rome that a strong anti-clerical
sentiment did not exist on any large scale.
In 1516, at the Concordat of Bologna, Francis I and Pope Leo X agreed upon a set of
rights that granted the French king the power to nominate bishops. Although a victory for the
king, the Concordat threatened Frances Gallican liberties by bringing the Church under
stronger monarchal control by allowing royal authorities to appoint bishops and lesser clergy
members.4Although many feared a loss of individual freedoms for churches, the Concordat
of Bologna continued to promote Frances autonomy from Romes oversight, preventing
xenophobic sentiment against the clergy from arising in the general population. The majority
of the populace continued to hold Catholic ecclesiastics in high esteem as valuable members
of the local community. Thus, while abuses within the Catholic Church concerned many who
called for reforms, the numbers of French Protestants remained low in comparison to the
overall population.
With widespread support for Catholicism, the French continued to see themselves as
a combined collectivity of people with one shared faith. The clergy enjoyed support from all
levels of society; kings and peasants, different in all other aspects, united under the Catholic
Church. To remain a country of one king, one faith and one lawFrance was obliged to
follow the doctrine of the Catholic Church. Authorities sporadically tolerated some believers
who did not adhere to this stringent orthodoxy as long as they did not deviate too overtly
from the state religion. Small pockets of Waldensians remained in remote regions, refusing to
pray to saints, honor images or submit to priests deemed immoral, but their descendants
4Mack P. Holt,Renaissance and Reformation France: 1500-1648 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 16.
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outwardly remained conformed to the established religion by attending mass and receiving
the sacraments.5This was the greatest deviation allowed in France; a refusal to honor the
traditions of Catholicism resulted in harassment, expulsion, or death.
In 1184, Pope Lucius III set up theEpiscopal Inquisitionto combat growing heresy
and ordered that those not in communion with the Catholic Church be executed and their
property sequestered. The institutions main targets were the aforementioned Waldensians
and the Cathars in Southern France. While a few Waldensian families survived, a campaign
launched by Pope Innocent III and primarily carried out by French knights mercilessly killed
Cathars in the Albigensian Crusade (1208-1229). Throughout the thirteenth century, armiesroutinely carried out massacres in Cathar strongholds. Another Inquisition, begun in 1231,
finished off the remaining Cathars so that by the beginning of the fourteenth century the
entire sect had essentially been annihilated. Once the Inquisition had succeeded in its
campaign against the Cathars, their attention turned towards the Jews, whom they feared
were attempting to convert Christians. Philip IV expelled the Jews from France in 1306, only
to allow their return nine years later before a Royal injunction forced them to leave the
country permanently in 1394. These intense persecutions along with the expulsion of the
Jews resulted in a pre-Reformation French realm where no one lived entirely outside the
Church.
Since the time of Philip IV in the beginning of the fourteenth century, the French
monarch adopted the titleRex Christianissimus, most-Christian king.6Increasingly,
national myths took shape linking Frances prosperity and identity to its exemplary devotion
5Philip Benedict, Barbara Diefendorf, and Virginia Reinburg, Catholic Reform and Religious Coexistence, inRenaissance and Reformation France, ed. Mack P. Holt (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 119.
6William Monter,Judging the French Reformation: Heresy Trials by Sixteenth-Century Parlements (Cambridge:Harvard University Press, 1999), 8.
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to the true faith, as embodied in the kings coronation oath to purge heresy from the
kingdom.7France took its defense of the Catholic faith seriously, which united the French
people by their common adherence to the Church. Amid the patchwork of provinces that
made up late medieval France, Christianity defined the nations common culture like nothing
else.8
The sacraments provided parishioners with identifying markers for each stage of life.
Baptisms incorporated the newborn into the Church, and an extensive network of godparents
drawn from relatives and neighbors strengthened the communal spirit of the Church.9
Confirmation marked the passage from childhood to adulthood; marriages were most oftencelebrated in the local parish, and the dying received absolution as part of extreme unction.
Central to salvation was the celebration of the Eucharist at mass. Since Lateran IV, the
papacy required weekly attendance at mass, gathering entire neighborhoods together in a
shared ritual of sacrifice, prayer, hymns and communion, central to collective religious
experience.10
The Church reached into the religious and social life of everyone and acted as a
source of cohesion between family and neighborhood groups. The Catholic Church embodied
the collective nature of Christianity and occupied a central position in the life of the parish
serving many functions as the place where the community worshipped, celebrated feast days,
baptized their children, and buried their dead. In addition to liturgical duties, the parishs
pastor was also responsible for keeping records of births, marriages and burials.11The parish
7Benedict, Catholic Reform and Religious Coexistence,119-120.8Benedict, Catholic Reform and Religious Coexistence, 119.9Benedict, Catholic Reform and Religious Coexistence, 123.10Benedict, Catholic Reform and Religious Coexistence, 124.11Benedict, Catholic Reform and Religious Coexistence, 125.
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church was also central to the social life of parishioners, with church buildings often serving
as a place to collect taxes, as meeting places for neighborhood assemblies, and as a venue for
parishioners to conduct business.12For the late medieval man, the church was the center of
communal life; as long as one remained within the confines of church doctrine, one remained
a part of the community.
Prior to the Protestant Reformation, the majority of citizens deviated remarkably little
from official church dogma, thereby retaining Catholicism as an identifiable value shared by
all French people. The intrusion of evangelical Protestantism into the Catholic world
shattered the French ideal of one king, one faith, one law.Instead of existing on the fringesof Catholic society, Protestant groups increasingly began to separate themselves by rejecting
the traditions and symbols of the Catholic Church. While the Huguenots certainly considered
themselves part of the French nation, their rejection of Catholicism led the bulk of the French
populace to label the Huguenots as the other.
Reformation in France
In spite of overwhelming support for Catholicism and condemnation from the Sorbonne,
Protestant thoughts gradually filtered into France. French Calvinism had its origins in the
humanist circles of Meaux, not too far from Paris in the le-de-France region.13The Cercle
de Meauxbrought humanists together under the direction of the bishop in 1519, in an effort
to implement reforms within the Catholic Church. The groups emphasis on the study of the
Bible prompted the suspicion of the Sorbonne and it was forced to disband in 1525. Although
12Benedict, Catholic Reform and Religious Coexistence, 121-122.13Holt,Renaissance and Reformation France,23.
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most members of the Cercleremained Catholic, the group also included those who would
later adopt Protestantism, including the founder of the Reformed Church in Geneva, William
Farel. Despite the break up of the Cercle de Meaux,Protestant thoughts continued to spread
through the 1520s and 1530s.
Surrounded by humanist friends, Francis I initially sought limited toleration of French
Protestants for both personal and political reasons. The king was discouraged from
persecuting early Protestant movements at the bequest of his sister, Marguerite
dAngoulme. Influenced by mysticism, Marguerite had displayed a deep interest in the
Scriptures, and as a patron of the arts and scholarship had associates among theCercle de
Meauxreformers. Medieval mystics often claimed to have a direct spiritual connection with
the Divine, and thereby attracted scrutiny for seemingly bypassing the hierarchy of the
Church. Although she never strayed away from Catholicism, Marguerites writings were so
controversial that they came under fire by the Sorbonne. Francis intervened on behalf of his
sister, and resented continuing attempts by the Sorbonne to dictate royal policy in regards to
religion.14
Francis also restrained efforts to harass Protestants in order to solicit the aid of
German Protestant princes, whom he hoped would join him in opposition to the Holy Roman
Emperor, Charles V. For much of his reign, Francis I was continually at war with Charles V
over disputed territories. At the time, The Holy Roman Empire included Spain, the Low
Countries, Milan and Franche-Comt, which essentially surrounded the French realm. The
German princes, under the control of The Holy Roman Empire, also hoped to lessen the
power and influence of Charles V. The Lutheran princes formed a protective alliance known
14R. J. Knecht, The French Civil Wars, 1562-1598 (New York: Longman, 2000), 180-181.
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as the Schmalkaldic League and continued to come into conflict with Charles V throughout
the sixteenth century. Franciss desire to limit the advances of Charles V kept the king from
persecuting Protestants too heavily and allowed the Reformation to grow throughout France.
As their numbers increased, Protestants grew more emboldened and began to attack
Church doctrine and property more openly. In October of 1534, a Protestant wave of
iconoclasm during the Affair of the Placards ended Franciss conciliatory attitude. During the
night of October 17, Protestants posted anti-Catholic placards around public buildings in
Paris, Blois, Rouen, Tours and Orlans, including affixing one to the bedchamber door of
Francis I. The broadsheets testified to the dangers of the pompish and arrogant popishmass, repudiated transubstantiation, and ended with a promise that truth would seek out
and destroy the papists.15The inflammatory nature of the posters in addition to the
Protestant defamers ability to access the kings quarters caused a hardening in the policies of
the crown against heretics.
In the months following the Affair of the Placards, royal authorities imprisoned some
400 Protestants with a reported 120 executed, including two dozen people in Paris alone, the
largest heretic execution ever.16Catholics displayed their loyalty to the Roman Church by
holding Holy Processions, and the king himself publicly affirmed his Catholic faith. In an
effort to root out heresy, Francis was instrumental in setting up the Chambre Ardente (The
Burning Room), a commission that operated as a court for the trial of heretics. Following
Franciss death, Henry II zealously persecuted Protestants by increasing the activities of the
Chambre, which sentenced more than 500 Lutherans in its first three years, holding more
15Donald R. Kelley, The Beginning of Ideology: Consciousness and Society in the French Reformation (NewYork: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 13.
16Barbara B. Diefendorf, ed., The Saint Bartholomews Day Massacre: A Brief History with Documents(Boston:St. Martin's, 2008), 139.
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than sixty executions.17
Huguenot Growth
Despite increased efforts by the crown to extinguish heresy within the realm and strict
censorship of all materials, Protestant ideology continued to spread. Frances close ties with
the Swiss cantons allowed for Calvinisms export directly from Geneva; by 1555, Calvin had
formed Calvinist churches in Paris and Poitiers, and others soon followed. Following the
death of Henry II, the crown passed to a succession of his young sons, under whose weak
leadership the self-proclaimed religion rformereached upwards of one thousandcongregations.18Members of the French Reformed Church eventually became known as the
Huguenots, reportedly in reference to the ghost Huguet said to haunt the Castle of Tours at
night. By referencing Huguet, Catholics hoped to bring up sinister images of the Protestants
clandestine meetings that occurred under the cover of darkness.
During the sixteenth century, Protestant churches drew converts from all social
classes and occupational groups. The rural peasantry remained the least influenced by the
Huguenots, although areas under staunchly Calvinist lords or villages closely tied to urban
centers recorded higher numbers of Protestants. The movement was most successful in cities
and market towns, where ideas spread quickly and social mobility was greater. Higher rates
of literacy and a strong influx of ideas from groups migrating to cities helped to bolster
Huguenot numbers. Reformed communities were especially numerous in Normandy, the
Loire Valley, and in a stretch from Poitou in Aquitaine across to Vivarais and Dauphin,
even representing the majority in the southern cities of Nimes, Montauban and Castres, as
17Kelley, The Beginning of Ideology, 123.18Benedict, Catholic Reform and Religious Coexistence, 140.
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well as making up nearly a third of the population in Lyon and a fifth in Rouen.19Despite
some success in converting urban populations, the city of Paris remained overwhelmingly
Catholic, with less than a tenth of Parisians adhering to the Reformed faith.20Although
Protestant preachers had found eager converts in Paris, the citys position as capital and trade
center made opposition to the Huguenots stronger than in outlying provinces. Those nobles
and elites who chose to convert often retired to the country estates and those that remained
were acutely aware of their minority status and seldom engaged in overt political activity.21
While other towns permitted Huguenots to worship openly, Paris only allowed religious
services for a brief time in late 1561 to early 1562.
22
The Catholic capital simply would nottolerate Huguenot heretics within its walls.
Regardless of their residence, Protestants were drawn from a large cross-section of
society, as evidenced by the records of occupations of those executed following the Affair of
the Placards. Among those executed were significant numbers of merchants and middle-class
shopkeepers, plus a good number of intellectualssuch as those employed by the Church
and universities, printers, booksellers and lawyers.23Conversion efforts were most successful
amongst middle ranks of merchants and those artisans employed in the most independent and
literate fields.24It would appear that the Protestant emphasis on personal faith resonated with
the sense of self-worth of these upwardly mobile urban groups.25
The Protestant faith held a strong initial attraction for magistrates and royal officers.
19Benedict, Catholic Reform and Religious Coexistence, 141.
20Benedict, Catholic Reform and Religious Coexistence, 141.21Barbara B. Diefendorf, Prologue to a Massacre: Popular Unrest in Paris, 1557-1572,The American Historical
Review 90, No. 5 (December 1985): 1071, http://www.jstor.org/stable/1859659 (accessed Feb.10, 2010).22Diefendorf, Prologue to a Massacre, 1072.23Kelley, The Beginning of Ideology, 14.24Benedict, Catholic Reform and Religious Coexistence, 141.25Diefendorf, The St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre, 8.
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In Toulouse, a particularly large number of minority officers were Protestant.26Despite early
interest in Protestant teachings, many of the officers in the highest positions backed quickly
away from the new religion following the crowns condemnation of heresy. For the most
privileged, the declaration against Protestantism caused them to abandon religious
inclinations in favor of the advantages enjoyed by royal officials.27Consequently, most upper
level professionals remained Catholic. While many elites quickly turned away from the
Reformed religion, the social mobility characterized by Protestantisms rejection of religious
hierarchy attracted many lesser nobles to the faith. Alongside converts from the lower
nobility, the Reformed faith also counted amongst its numbers some prominent members ofthe upper nobility, including Louis, Prince of Cond; Gaspard de Coligny, the Admiral of
France; and Jeanne dAlbret, niece of Francis I and Queen of Navarre.
Though the number of Huguenot nobles remained low, their influence was large
enough to bolster the Reformed community. The predominant makeup of the Huguenots
continued to draw from artisans and the merchant class. From the point of view of public
visibility and ideological force, the urban middle-class formed much of the base, although
lower class and illiterate persons were often involved in the mass gatherings and iconoclastic
outbreaks and figured prominently in the martyr rolls.28Even with converts from the urban
poor, the lowest strata of society, unskilled workers and day laborers remained the least
influenced by Reformed ideas.29
Although the Huguenots achieved some measure of success, the actual numbers of
26Benedict, Catholic Reform and Religious Coexistence, 141.27Diefendorf, The St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre, 10.28Kelley, The Beginning of Ideology, 39-40.29Benedict, Catholic Reform and Religious Coexistence, 141.
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converts remained low, never accounting for more than 10-15% of the total population.
Despite this, the sudden proliferation of Reformed churches, coupled with the
disproportionate numbers of Huguenots among city dwellers and the nobility, heightened
anxiety among the Catholic populace. In 1562, seven years after the first Reformed
congregation, France officially recognized two different forms of Christianity in Catherine de
Medicis January Edict of Saint Germain.30The Edict hoped to provide a middle ground
between the two faiths by recognizing the existence of the Protestants and guaranteeing
freedom of conscience and private worship while forbidding Huguenots to worship openly
within towns. Rather than spreading a policy of toleration as hoped, Catherine de Medicis
January Edict of Saint Germain in 1562 increased tensions and polarized the French people.
In response, Catholics rallied around the symbols of their faith, encouraged by outspoken
mendicant preachers who denounced the errors of the Reformed and reminded authorities of
their sworn obligation to root out heretics.31The religious conflicts that arose during the
French Reformation were reinforced by a society that tolerated and sometimes encouraged
violent expression.
Cultures of Violence
Displays of force were an endemic part of sixteenth-century society, but a culture of
violenceis not dependent upon political warfare, rather it is specific to actions of
interpersonal violence. Cultures of violence are important frameworks through which
30Benedict, Catholic Reform and Religious Coexistence, 146.31Benedict, Catholic Reform and Religious Coexistence, 145.
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physical aggression is understood, justified, condemned, and controlled.32It is also necessary
to note that culture is not defined solely as a set of shared values among a group. Social
organizations, psychological mechanisms and culture are mutually interactive, combining to
create a more complex picture of why a segment of society participates in certain
behaviors.33
InBlood and Violence in Early Modern France, Stuart Carroll identifies cultural
values of the French nobility to explain high levels of violence found in sixteenth-century
France. Carroll associates specific values found in the warrior class of French nobility,
traits such as aggression, individualism and competition,as likely to increaseviolence.34 While Carrolls work explains rising levels of violence during the turbulent Wars
of Religion, similar cultural values can likewise be associated with the common classes.
Aggression is not solely the domain of the nobility; numerous urban and peasant
revolts can attest to the aggressive nature present in all classes of late medieval society.
Carroll rightly identifies individualism as a source for increased aggressive behavior amongst
nobles, but conformity can also be a component of violence. Donald Kelleys The Beginning
of Ideologyidentifies the values of idealism, self-sacrifice, personal conviction, and selfless
action towards a common course as central to Protestant psychology.35These ideals caused
Huguenots to express a sort of collective individualism in response to the traditional Roman
Catholic faith. Religious riots of the sixteenth century showed that adherence to orthodoxy
could also trigger violent behavior in which urban rioters acted upon shared values. The
32John Carter Wood, Conceptualizing cultures of violence and cultural change, inCultures of Violence:Interpersonal Violence in Historical Perspective, ed. Stuart Carroll (Basingstoke, NH: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), 92.
33Wood, Conceptualizing cultures of violence and cultural change, 92.34Stuart Carroll,Blood and Violence in Early Modern France (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), 7.35Kelley, The Beginning of Ideology, 57.
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French Catholic populaces continual emphasis on tradition and its perceived state of
endangerment inevitably caused a clash between the two confessions, opposing ideals.
Eventually, both groups were able to turn towards a shared societal value prescribing
violence as a valid method for settling conflicts.
Competition, although not on the same scale as amongst the nobility, was present in
urban society and the rising bourgeoisieclass. Competition for jobs and positions of
influence increased the stakes in the Catholic-Huguenot conflict. Numerical superiority also
drove religious disturbances. Towns with significant Huguenot minorities experienced more
acts of religious violence as the two confessions vied for control, while towns with negligibleHuguenot populations remained relatively calm.
Violence in Sixteenth-Century France
Since the time of the Black Death, medieval life for most Europeans was
unquestionably fraught with dangers and uncertainty. Following unequalled loss of life,
Europe began a period of rapid growth and urbanization. A burgeoning middle class was
beginning to arise as urban artisans, tradesmen and their guilds emerged as increasingly
powerful forces. While towns dominated the political and social culture of France, they did
not herald a decrease in violence. The thick city wall, common during the sixteenth century,
symbolized the potential for violence in early modern society and defined exclusive rights
afforded to city dwellers.36These walls secured urban society from the threat of outside
attack and served to define the public space of townspeople as unique and separate from that
of the peasantry.
36Jonathan Dewald, Social Groups and Cultural Practices, inRenaissance and Reformation France, ed. Mack P.Holt (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 39.
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Although the walls protected municipalities from outside attack, they also served to
prevent townspeople from fleeing the city in times of unrest. Crowded and unsanitary
conditions and limited food supplies often led to violent outbursts in late medieval France.
Rising food prices in response to increasing populations caused urban riots in Lyon in 1529
and Provins in 1573.37
The growing distinction between social groups in urban areas also led to increasing
tensions in municipalities. France had long been divided into three orders: the clergy, nobles,
and commoners, each dependent upon the other. In principle, these groups could exist
peacefully despite inequality, but by the sixteenth century, commoners began to question thenotion that the clergy and nobles contributed to the welfare for all. It was becoming
increasingly evident to commoners that only money and power distinguished the two higher
orders from themselves.38
Additionally, cities attracted large numbers of immigrants, many young men without
local attachments, causing rates of violent crimes to increase. A record from fifteenth-century
Dijon indicated that nearly half of all young men had participated in gang rape.39Although
thievery and sexual crimes in urban areas were remarkably high, murder was uncommon.
Seventeenth-century records from Lyon, one of the largest cities of the time, recorded a
remarkable one homicide per year.40With relatively low numbers of murders, local
authorities were far more concerned about collective rather than individual violence.41
While social and economic conditions certainly contributed to the violence of the
37Dewald, Social Groups and Cultural Practices, 44.38Dewald, Social Groups and Cultural Practices, 28-29.39Dewald, Social Groups and Cultural Practices, 44.40Dewald, Social Groups and Cultural Practices, 44.41Dewald, Social Groups and Cultural Practices, 44.
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time, religious passions exacerbated these issues, increasing the fervor of participants in the
conflicts. Religious violence is more intense because it connects intimately with fundamental
values and the self-definition of a community.42Religion as a catalyst clearly amplified
existing violent tendencies, transforming them into more brutal expressions. The easy
identification of the feared and loathed otherthat resulted from the Huguenot-Catholic
division best explains the widespread violence.
Religious Rioters
Like most of Medieval Europe, France had a long history of violence and religiousmotivations, which often resulted in small, localized conflicts. Outbreaks of religious
conflicts arose not only from a set of collective values held by either Catholics or Protestants,
but also from cross-confessional beliefs and attitudes that reinforced violent behavior as an
acceptable reaction in the face of a threat. Religious riots can be defined as any violent
action, with words or weapons, undertaken against religious targets by people who were not
acting under any given political authority.43This definition excludes those individuals whose
primary aim was political gain as well as those who acted on direct behalf of the religious
authorities, such as in the case of the Crusades. Those who perpetrated such violence were
characterized as religious rioters by the fact that they were not acting officially and formally
as agents of political or ecclesiastical hierarchy.44Rioters, although not acting on behalf of
these authorities, may still be prompted by political or moral traditions that legitimize and
42Natalie Zemon Davis, Society and Culture in Early Modern France: Eight Essays (Stanford: StanfordUniversity Press, 1977), 186.
43Davis, Society and Culture in Early Modern France, 153.44Davis, Society and Culture in Early Modern France, 53.
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even prescribe violence.45
Some historians see religious mob violence as guided by a deep psychological force.
Janine EstbesTocsin pour un massacredescribes crowds participating in the religious
violence as part of a collective unconscious harkening back to the rites of primitive tribes.46
More likely, those participating in the events were part of a thinking society acting out
specific forms of aggression in the face of the destabilization that accompanied the Protestant
Reformation. In her groundbreaking work, Society and Culture in Early Modern France,
Natalie Davis suggests that expressions of religious violence demonstrated acceptable social
behavior in the face of threats. The actors in the conflicts were not merely miserable,
uprooted, unstable masses but people who had some stake in their community.47The rioters
shared a culture that not only dictated their actions but also allowed for their behaviors.
Urban rioters were deeply impacted by the Reformation; the rifts that arose divided families
and neighborhoods as the two confessions competed for equal shares in their community.
It is also crucial to note that popular religious disturbances during the sixteenth
century did not come from mindless mobs acting on the passionsof the moment. Religious
violence, regardless of the brutality exhibited, targeted explicit individuals to whom rioters
applied distinct forms of punishment; the bloodshed was neither arbitrary nor infinite.48
Crowds participating in religious disturbances had some sense that what they were doing was
legitimate; the event somehow related to a defense of their cause, and their violent behavior
45Davis, Society and Culture in Early Modern France, 154.46Janine Garrisson Estbe, Tocsin pour un massacre: La saison de Saint-Barthlemy (Paris: Le Centurion, 1968),
197.47Davis, Society and Culture in Early Modern France, 154, 186.48Davis, Society and Culture in Early Modern France, 154.
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more efficiently.
Goals of Popular Religious Violence
If one assumes that the crowds partaking in acts of religious violence were composed
of thinking individuals, rather than a collection of people acting out randomly, then the
collective group must have a set of defined goals. For religious violence, the aims of the
crowd usually reflect three main initiatives: to exert a perceived sense of authority, purge a
taint from the municipality, and ultimately defend ones faith in the face of a threat.
First, crowd involvement in religious uprising often coincided with a perception thatthe appropriate authorities, whether political or religious, no longer protected the populace
from the serious threat of heresy. Royal concessions to the Protestants portrayed an image to
the Catholic populace that the Crown lacked a desire to exert the necessary punishment on
the heretics. For their part, leaders of the Reformed Church spoke of malicious forces that
threatened the security of the royal family and prepared to take justifiable action if needed to
protect the king. Both confessions backed up their actions by presenting themselves as
defenders of the realm by re-enacting the roles of magisterial authorities.
Second, religious violence at the popular level was often associated with a need to rid
the community of a taint brought on by religious deviants. Catholic crowds saw
Protestantism itself as a spreading disease that threatened society. By undermining the
Catholic Mass, Protestants jeopardized the health and salvation of the whole community.53In
their attacks on the Church, Huguenots often preached against the taint of the clergy,
recalling their lewdness and the use of concubines, in addition to attacking the perceived
53Lindberg, The European Reformations, 265.
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diabolic nature of the Holy Mass and the worship of idols within the Catholic Church.54The
danger to both confessions was intensely real, as both Catholics and Protestants feared a
reprisal from God. The idea of stopping the spread of a disease was behind many rites of
purification that occurred during outbreaks of violence.55
Once crowds had assumed authority and identified the source of the taint, the ultimate
goal was to protect ones religion. For many groups, this often entails the defense of true
doctrine along with a refutation of the false.56The French Catholic majority saw Huguenots
rejection of the sacraments and refusal to participate in traditional practices as a threat to the
truefaith, while Protestants equaled the idolatry of the Catholic Church to that of a falsereligion in the eyes of God. For both confessions, the defense of their faith as well as the
refutation of the other was a strong motivator for violence.
Each of these aims presents an image of a group of people united by common goals
that they achieved through a series of violent disturbances. For a clearer picture of the
Catholic-Huguenot conflict brewing in sixteenth-century France, one must examine each of
these goals to understand the motivations and fears of the group.
Appropriating Authority
Crowds often acted out the roles of magistrates, seeing themselves not as mass
murderers, but as judges responsible for enforcing rules and bringing criminals to justice. In
this way, many religious disturbances began with the ringing of the tocsin as was traditional
54Davis, Society and Culture in Early Modern France, 159.55Davis, Society and Culture in Early Modern France, 159.56Davis, Society and Culture in Early Modern France, 159.
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men previously found guilty of attacks on their beliefs and objects of worship now
responsible for the defense of their rights, justice and traditions.62 In the eyes of the French
Catholics, the crown not only failed to root out heresy, but also to punish the Huguenots
adequately for their insurrection during the Wars of Religion. In the absence of a political
mechanism to combat the growing problem, Catholic crowds appropriated the right to
prosecute heretics themselves.63The violence that surfaced during the massacres arose not
only out of hatred of a dangerous other but in response to aperceived failure by officials to
persecute heresy.
Rites of Purification:Removing the Taint
Public executions were widely attended and publicized events during the late middle
age. The ceremony of execution was a rite that affirmed the social and political order by
punishing the body of the transgressor and proclaiming the mercy of God.64Crowds may
have been witness to trials of heretics, which may have included having the blasphemers
tongue sliced or pierced and offending hands cut off, or executions of traitors involving
decapitation and quartering.65Although capital punishment was common during the sixteenth
century, authorities reserved burnings for heretics, based on ancient notions about ritual
purification that occurred through fire.66The execution of heretics was a liturgy in which the
process of degradation of heretics proceeded from symbolic actions to an incineration
62Estbe, Tocsin pour un massacre, 100.63Luc Racaut,Hatred in Print: Catholic Propaganda and Protestant Identity During the French Wars of Religion
(Hampshire, England: Ashgate, 2002), 155-178.64Carroll,Blood and Violence in Early Modern France, 209.65Davis, Society and Culture in Early Modern France, 162.66Monter,Judging the French Reformation, 11.
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intended to expunge their memory forever.67
On October 7, 1546, fourteen Protestants were sentenced to death in Meaux for
attending an illegal, clandestine meeting. They were to be Frances first execution in a style
reminiscent of the Spanish InquisitionsAuto de f,a death previously reserved for Jewish
heretics, in which the condemned were placed in a circle in the center of the main market to
be burned alive.68Executioners strangled the repentant before burning while the tongues of
the unrepentant were cut out, to prevent any last blasphemies before they were burned
alive.69To ensure that all memory of the event was expunged, authorities destroyed the place
of the meeting, the home of Etienne Mangin, and erected a chapel in its place dedicated tothe Holy Sacrament of the Altar.70This ancient rite purified the town of Meaux and restored
balance to the municipality.
Once religious rioters decided that they had a justifiable right to act, they then set
about to remove the populace that infected the French realm with heresy. Participants in
religious disturbances drew upon a series of rites and rituals taken from popular festivals,
liturgical practices, official executions, and folk justice to purify a community.71Purification
rites could take the form of brutal murders or manifestations of more mundane attacks on
non-living targets.
For Protestant crowds, idolatry was the most dangerous facet of Catholicism; hence,
they focused their attention on the destruction of church property. Huguenots participated in
iconoclastic attacks on churches and monasteries. Mobs adhering to the Reformed faith
67Lindberg, The European Reformations, 265.68Monter,Judging the French Reformation, 192.69Monter,Judging the French Reformation, 193-94.70Monter,Judging the French Reformation, 195.71Davis, Society and Culture in Early Modern France, 181.
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defaced relics and statues in an effort to cleanse their towns of superstitious false idols.
Protestants also attacked liturgical works by burning priestsmanuals, the missals, and the
brevarians.72These works represented an apparent taint on Christianity by perverting the
uncorrupted Word of God found solely in the Bible. When Protestant crowds did target
human life, their victims of choice were priests, monks, and friars.73Protestants primarily
saw the idols that Catholics worshipped and their leaders as the source of their degeneration.
Catholic rioters also identified certain possessions of Huguenots as serious threats to
their faith. Catholics burned books, primarily the French Bible which they equated to a
dangerous gangrene that spread though the population corrupting the souls of France.Catholic mobs burned down the houses of those Protestants killed in riots or executed as
heretics. By burning the homes of Huguenots, Catholics felt they were purifying the town
while expunging the memory of the heretic. A major distinction between Catholic and
Protestant violence was that Catholics attacked the physical body, while Protestants were
more interested in attacking objects and symbols. Catholics used the allegory of fire by
burning victims and their corpses in a literal purge. The depth of a well was the metaphoric
gateway to Hell, and accounts of rioters throwing Protestants into wells suggested a literal
connection with sending the heretic straight to Satan.74Catholics also dumped the living and
the dead into local bodies of water in a forced baptism. The rivers also served to carry
many of the victims downstream thereby physically removing the taint of the heretics.
When examining acts carried out during religious disturbances, it is necessary to
72Davis, Society and Culture in Early Modern France, 174.73Davis, Society and Culture in Early Modern France, 174.74Denis Crouzet,Les guerriers de Dieu: La violence au temps des troubles de religion, vers 1525-1610 (Seyssel,
France: Champ Vallon, 1990), 290.
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include the mutilation of corpses as part of the ritualistic killings that occurred. When
examining religious disturbances from a modern perception, the gruesome details of the
murders stand out and such brutality has sometimes been associated with traits exclusive to
perverted societies. However, in legitimate practices of the time, religious crowds replicating
such heinous acts were able to remain within the bounds of normal society. The main aim of
these acts was to humiliate the heretic in a ritual that dehumanized the victim. Humiliation
and bodily mutilation were closely linked and were largely incorporated into the trappings of
official torture and execution in the sixteenth century.75 The corpses of heinous criminals
would be dragged through the streets and often mutilated in front of a large crowd. Forrioters, dismembering their victims served to desecrate the memory of the dead. Huguenots
who only saw the living as a threat did not usually carry out these acts, but to Catholics, the
bodies of the dead represented an equal threat to the populace. Crowds that reenacted rituals
from public executions hoped to demonstrate that their actions were warranted. The
purification rites they carried out ultimately aimed to confirm their faith as the only true
religion.
Defense of the One True Faith
Participants in religious disturbances ultimately sought to install their religion as the
rightful dogma, while dispelling the beliefs of their opponents. The two confessions acted out
a series of exchanges of defiance, antagonism, and coldness that escalated over time into
public insults and attacks on property.76Exchanges were governed by a notion of score
keeping, maintaining a rhythm in which each challenge required a retort of rough
75Carroll,Blood and Violence in Early Modern France, 173-174.76Carroll,Blood and Violence in Early Modern France, 83.
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equivalence.77At the heart of the Catholic-Protestant conflict was a clash between two
divergent systems of sacred symbols, and the hostile images of the other faith that came to be
attached to these symbols.78Protestant rituals and practices differed sharply from Catholic
traditions; accompanying these alien practices were dangerous deviations of beliefs.
At the center of the Reformed Faith lay a refutation of the sacramental rituals of the
Catholic Church. Huguenots believed that only through Gods Grace could one achieve
salvation, a fate that God had decided before ones birth. As followers of Calvin, no amount
of good deeds could increase ones chance at achieving salvation; therefore, Huguenots
denounced good works and pilgrimages that made up an integral part of medievalCatholicism. Huguenots believed their doctrine to be purer, and thereby as good Christians,
they deemed it necessary to oppose the sacred rituals of Catholicism. For the same reason,
Huguenots rejected the hierarchy of the Church, which led to verbal and sometimes physical
attacks on priests. Huguenots also dismissed the relics and idols of the Catholic Church,
claiming that superstition and corruption were the only powers behind such relics. For
Calvinists, these relics challenged Gods commandment against idol worship and the
production of graven images, and numerous incidents of Protestant iconoclasm accompanied
the spread of the new faith. Desecration of holy relics, on top of occasional violent attacks by
Huguenots on members of the holy orders, infuriated the Catholic majority.
Catholic mobs often became enraged when they perceived a lack of respect for their
sacred beliefs by the Huguenots. Inappropriate gestures breached courtesy, were antagonistic,
77Carroll,Blood and Violence in Early Modern France, 83.78Philip Benedict, The Wars of Religion, 1562-1598, inRenaissance and Reformation France, ed. Mack P. Holt
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 148.
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and were likely to cause offense.79For instance, the failure of a Huguenot to doff his hat
when passing a holy relic, or the more serious offense of failing to kneel during a
processional of the Holy Host were provocation enough to spark religious disturbances.
Particularly disturbing for Catholics was the slandering of the Virgin Mary by Huguenots,
and their mockery of the Holy Eucharist as a god of flour.Recalling Frances sworn
responsibility to the true faith, Catholics demanded that these dangerous and depraved
souls be punished.80
Over the next years, the two confessions became well versed in acts of religious
violence. They followed a prescribed set of behaviors rehearsed numerous times in smalldisturbances. These conflicts worsened as the Huguenot-Catholic divide widened, partly due
to a desire on behalf of the Huguenots to define themselves as wholly different from their
Catholic counterparts. With Huguenot leaders already depicting their own otherness, Catholic
propaganda seized every opportunity to reinforce the alien nature of the Protestants.
79Carroll,Blood and Violence in Early Modern France, 87.80Benedict, The Wars of Religion, 1562-1598, 148.
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III. RISING TENSIONS: CATHOLIC-HUGUENOT CONFLICT
Pure Christians as a Family of Believers
Early Calvinist movements, once fragmented about France, unified into a collective
body by the middle of the sixteenth century. As Huguenot numbers grew, so did the necessity
for a cohesive ideological philosophy. Common themes for Huguenot polemics were
Calvinism as a purer state of Christianity, the Reformed Church as an adoptive family, and
an emphasis on Protestant martyrdom. Propagandists and church leaders used these themes to
build a spiritual community with shared values.
Central to Protestant ideology was a belief that the Reformed Church was, as its
name implied, a reformed faith, unpolluted by Roman Catholicism. This purity of belief
theorized that the Protestant religion was closer to the original Christianity as inspired by
Jesus Christ. The French Reformed Church grew out of Calvins Genevan church; Huguenot
congregations followed Calvinist teachings of the Reformed religion as successor to an
ancient church. By connecting their embryonic religion to the beginnings of Christianity,
Huguenot leaders could promote change under the guise of preserving tradition or harkening
a return to an earlier and better state.81In order for one to achieve this purer form of
Christianity, it was often necessary for converts to turn away not only from the old faith, but
from their relatives and neighbors as well.
81Kelley, The Beginning of Ideology, 307.
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Protestant rhetoric revolted against the paternal authority of the clergy and sought to
instill a universal body of believers. For those who chose to leave the traditional for the
Reformed faith, it was sometimes necessary to distance themselves from relatives and
neighbors. On one hand, the Reformation praised the values of family life, but on the other, it
made little acknowledgment of kin beyond ones closest relatives.82The Reformed Church
emphasized ones responsibility to ones spouse and children building up the immediate
family while breaking down bonds between aunts and uncles, nieces and nephews and
cousins. While extended familial ties had defined medieval society, the Reformation led to a
disintegration of the larger clanship, as families chose to convert to the new faith or remainloyal to the established religion. For those that converted to the Reformed faith supplanted
the extended biological and even nuclear family with a new spiritual family.
The decision to abjure Catholicism in favor of Protestant beliefs was primarily an
individual decision. In many cases, whole families converted, but in other instances family
members converted at separate times or not at all. A sample of Protestant women from
Toulouse and Lyon showed no evidence that wives followed their husbands conversion or
vice-versa, but some cases did point to a husband or and wife converting while their spouse
remained polluted in idolatry.83In some instances, those who converted came from the
traditionally disenfranchised: a number of female converts were widows. Converts who
turned away from the paternal hierarchy looked towards Huguenot pastors as substitute
fathers. Such was the case of the French theologian Theodore Beza, whose blood family was
replaced psychologically and honorifically by John Calvin as father and Bezas fellow
82Marzio Barbagli,Family Life in Early Modern Times, ed. David I. Kertzer (New Haven, CT: Yale UniversityPress, 2001), 258.
83Davis, Societyand Culture in Early Modern France, 81.
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society heightened tensions and opened the way for more stringent Catholic persecutions.
The increased harassment of members of the Reformed church ultimately resulted in the
most defining feature of Huguenot identity, the concept of martyrdom.
Huguenot Concepts of Martyrdom
Huguenots were part of a Reformed family in life and those martyred for their faith
could expect to join a family of saints persecuted since the dawn of Christianity. Huguenots
drew a direct connection between their current oppression and past accusations leveled at the
early Christian church. They were able to create a sense of community with the past througha psychological link to the early church, as well as a contemporary manifestation of a true
Christian.89The act of martyrdom allowed members of the Reformed community to affirm
both verbally and physically the power of belief and helped to legitimize the Protestant cause
by linking themselves to the ancient church. Calvinist martyrs attempted to console fellow
Reformers and explicate the endemic brutality of their situation by resorting to an Old
Testament framework in which Calvinists identified themselves as the Children of Israel in
Egyptian bondage.90By linking their current situation to trials and tribulations of past
prophets, Huguenots reinforced a belief in a direct inheritance from the ancient church.
For Huguenots, the most effective testimony andpublication of ones faith was
martyrdom.91Protestant propagandists hoped to capitalize on these acts of faith by
publishing chronicles of the lives of martyrs. The influential martyrologists Jean Crespin,
89Kelley, The Beginning of Ideology, 120-121.90Charles H. Parker, French Calvinists as the Children of Israel: An Old Testament Self-Consciousness in Jean
CrespinsHistoire des Martyrsbefore the Wars of Religion,The Sixteenth Century Journal24, No. 2 (Summer 1993): 230-231, http://www.jstor.org/stable/2541949 (accessed Apr. 7, 2010).
91Kelley, The Beginning of Ideology, 119.
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John Foxe, and Ludwig Rebus all worked from the ideology that Protestant sacrifice was part
of a fundamental continuum from the martyrs of the ancient church to the present.92The
blood of Huguenot martyrs fueled the Reformed Church just as the deaths of previous saints
fed the early Christian church. For Huguenots, martyrdom was neither a passive nor a
mournful activity, but a joyful sacrifice associated with the honorable sacrifices of early
Christian persecutions.93Chroniclers of the martyrs drew attention to their humble nature.
The prominent Protestant lawyer, Nicholas Pithou, recorded the professional and social status
of each martyr as a reminder that through Gods providence extraordinary things could
come from and happen to ordinary citizens.
94
The martyrologists were anxious to record notonly the pious lives of individuals, but also the supreme peace and resolve with which each
Protestant saint met his or her fate. Accounts of these martyrs spread throughout the realm
helping strengthen the resolve of converts while attesting to the Huguenots commitment to
their faith.
Although popular accounts of Protestant martyrs circulated widely by the 1550s, the
Affair de la Rue de St. Jacques cemented Huguenot conceptualization of martyrdom.95In
September of 1557, a Huguenot congregation gathered at a home located on the Rue de St.
Jacques near the Sorbonne in Paris. Alerted to the presence of the Protestants, some 400
Parisians, alongside priests from the College of Plessy, blocked the entrance to the house,
gathered stones, and started bonfires.96The angry mob attacked worshipers as they attempted
92Monter,Judging the French Reformation, 143.93Kelley, The Beginning of Ideology, 127.94Mark Greengrass, Nicholas Pithou: experience, conscience, and history in the French civil wars, in Religion,
Culture, and Society in Early Modern Britain: Essays in Honor of Patrick Collinson, ed. Anthony Fletcher and PeterRoberts (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 23.
95Racaut,Hatred in Print, 65.96Kelley, The Beginning of Ideology, 91.
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to flee, eventually overrunning the house and slaughtering most of the Huguenots, sealing
their fate as Protestant martyrs.
Protestant theologians used accounts like the deaths at the Rue de St. Jacques to
attack Catholics by proclaiming Huguenot martyrs as victims of a righteous war. While
theologians solidified Reformed ideology, Calvinist propagandists also went on the attack.
Protestants attacked the clergy as lecherous and immoral and drew a connection between the
Holy See and the devil himself. Protestant broadsheets also belittled Holy Processions and
pilgrimages through satirical print. Protestant authors contrasted depictions of a corrupt and
inept Catholic Church with portrayals of pious and learned Protestant leaders.
97
Thesesuccessful print campaigns primarily occurred outside of France where German Lutheran and
Swiss Calvinist leaders allowed their free circulation. In France, since Catholicism remained
the religion of the king and most of the nobility, the spread of virulently anti-Catholic
pamphlets was less rampant. Nevertheless, works attacking the clergy and Catholicism
circulated through France, breeding bitter sentiments among the Catholic majority.
Catholic Rhetoric: From Print to Pulpit
The ideological differences of Protestant thought, coupled with Protestant rhetoric
condemning the established religion and its traditions, further stigmatized Huguenots as
outsiders. Demonology was the Catholic response to Protestant hagiography.98Early in the
French Reformation, the Catholic leadership spawned the idea that Huguenots were monsters
in the eyes of God, a recurrent theme used both in printed materials and in the sermons of
97 For a look at Protestant propaganda in Germany, see Bob ScribnersFor the Sake of Simple Folk: PopularPropaganda for the German Reformation(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994).
98Donald R. Kelley, Martyrs, Myths, and the Massacre: The Background of St. Bartholomew,AmericanHistorical Review77, no. 5 (December 1972): 1329, http://www.jstor.org/stable/1861309 (accessed Apr. 7, 2010).
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priests. Catholic antagonists slandered Huguenot women and attacked a perceived
feminization of society that accompanied the Protestant faith. Finally, Catholics attacked
Huguenots as a dangerous, seditious group, who destabilized France with their treasonous
acts. Unlike Protestant reformers, who attempted to convince their audience of the necessity
of change, Catholic authors chose to reinforce the dangers of straying from tradition,
appealing to the wisdom of remaining faithful to the established religion.99
Widespread support of the Catholic majority allowed propagandists the freedom to
publish works harshly condemning Protestants without fear of offending the masses. Unlike
circumstances in Calvins Geneva or Luthers Germany where Protestants enjoyed broadsupport of the people, Catholics had the ear of the common folk in France.100The resulting
creation of print culture, the sixteenth-century concept and term propaganda (propaganda
fidei), ramped up both Catholic and Protestant promotion of printed ideas.101The relatively
free press in Swiss and German states that allowed Protestant literature to disseminate
quickly contrasted starkly with the strict censorship that operated in France.
In France, Catholics enjoyed the whole-hearted support of the printing industry as
well as the universities and the Parlement in Paris, whereas Protestants looked to Geneva for
guidance.102As early as 1537, authorities combated Protestant ideas by compelling printers
to send copies of all works to the royal library in Blois, where the faculties of law, medicine,
and theology examined each new publication for any signs of heresy.103In 1539, a royal
decree prohibited printers from issuing anonymous or pseudonymous books to ensure that the
99Racaut,Hatred in Print, 46-47.100Racaut,Hatred in Print, 46.101Kelley, The Beginning of Ideology, 244.102Racaut,Hatred in Print, 21.103Kelley, The Beginning of Ideology, 241-243.
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authorities could locate those responsible for writing the suspect work.104In 1544, the
Sorbonne published its Catalogue of Censured Books, banning works by Luther and Calvin,
in addition to those of Humanist writers like Rabelais and Dolet.105 From then on, French
printing operated under strict censorship, preventing Protestant works from originating
within the French realm. Such censorship merely increased the public's appetite for
Protestant works that flooded in from Geneva. Attempts by Calvinist leaders to reinforce
French Protestants through Genevan channels led to the banning of books printed in Geneva
in 1548.106 With control of printing, Catholic leaders were able to combat heresy with a
rabid intensity; the words printed in Catholic propaganda most likely paled in reflection towhat Catholics would have heard inpriests sermons.107
Rather than fighting on the battlefield, the laity and religious authorities waged the
war for the soul of France in the cities. In some cases, priests directly reached the literate
population, such as the Jesuit Possevino in Lyon, who paid for the printing of orthodox
booklets and distributed them free on the streets.108Although the sixteenth century saw a
growth in the urban literate population, literacy rates remained low, especially among the
poor and women of both faiths. Oral communication remained the best way for preachers to
reach the masses. Celebrated preachers commanded large audiences, and theologians were
better known for their ability to speak than for writing.109The position of priests gave them
the unique ability to reach both the learned and illiterate with their passionate words. Deeply
104Kelley, The Beginning of Ideology, 241-243.105Kelley, The Beginning of Ideology, 241.106Racaut,Hatred in Print, 15.107Racaut,Hatred in Print, 38.108Davis, Society and Culture in Early Modern France, 222.109Racaut,Hatred in Print, 37.
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Beyond stirring up resentment among the Catholic community over concessions made
during the edicts of pacification, Vigor also called down the wrath of God in response to the
proposed marriage between the Catholic princess Margaret and the Protestant Henry of
Navarre. In a sermon delivered shortly before the St. Bartholomews Day Massacre, Vigor
proclaimed that Dieu ne souffrira pas cet excrable accouplement (God will not suffer this
execrable coupling).115
Preachers were often able to turn the tide of a crowd, bolstering resolve through the
Word of God. Zealous Catholic preachers compared heresy to cancer or gangrene that needed
to be cut from the body.
116
Through such rhetoric, priests were able to clandestinely, orovertly call for action from the people. Although Vigor never outright told Catholics to kill
Protestants, the Jesuit laid the foundations for such actions by urging Catholics to pray to
God to exterminate the Huguenots.117Popular preachers were hugely influential in
disseminating specific religious or polemic messages, and vigorous preaching during this
period often resulted in outbreaks of violence on both sides.118Riots that broke out in 1562 in
Gien and Rouen both occurred shortly after sermons given on Deuteronomy 12, which opens
with a commandment to destroy the altars and pillars of pagan worshipers.119
Demonization of Huguenots
Catholic polemics engaged the public with their demonizing rhetoric and drew upon a
series of common accusations to reinforce this idea. Through print and propaganda,
115Estbe, Tocsin pour un massacre, 103.116Diefendorf, The St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre, 10.117Diefendorf,Beneath the Cross, 156.118Racaut,Hatred in Print, 38.119Davis, Society and Culture in Early Modern France, 166.
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Huguenots were systematically demonized until they not only existed as the other, but as
non humans.120Catholic leaders compared the heretics to beasts and used stereotypes of
animals to transfer loathsome feelings to Huguenots. Propaganda compared Huguenots to
donkeys, equating them to large-eared and stupid pack animals and to wolves or rabid dogs
whose savagery and nasty bites were to be feared.121Catholic antagonists also compared the
Reformed to roaches, vultures, pigs and snakes, all considered vile animals.122The object
was to depict the Huguenots as repulsive creatures wholly separate from the Catholic
populace. Once they classified Huguenots as monsters, Catholics were able to execute crimes
against them with little regard for human life.Catholic leaders engaged their audiences with their demonizing rhetoric and leveled a
series of common accusations at the Huguenots to reinforce this oratory. Themes such as the
clandestine orgies said to occur at Protestant meetings were fed by rumors and fueled by
written accounts. Catholic authors played an active role in propaganda and fulfilled the
expectations of their Catholic audience by perpetuating tales of Huguenot indiscretions.123
Catholic authorities reintroduced common myths and accusations previously levied against
Jews to attack the Protestants.
During the sixteenth century, much of the anger towards Jews had grown out of the
medieval suspicion surrounding the blood libelmyth, which alleged that in order to thrive,
Jews required a blood sacrifice of Christian children. Many Catholic propagandists carried
the blood libel myth over to the French Huguenots. The humanist writer Desiderius Erasmus
120Racaut,Hatred in Print, 37.121Crouzet,Les guerriers de Dieu, 262-263.122Crouzet,Les guerriers de Dieu, 265-269.123Racaut,Hatred in Print, 49.
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even used blood libel in his book on the concord of the church in 1533, which reported
nightly gatherings where men and women consorted in promiscuous love and mothers
freely handed over their children to be butchered.124The uses of blood libel by such an
influential writer gave credence to the rumors that were already spreading throughout France.
Catholics encouraged this belief by arousing suspicions concerning the clandestine nature of
Protestant gatherings.
Catholic persecution of the Jews often referred figuratively and literally to
poisonings. Catholics accused Jews of poisoning wells earlier in the Middle Ages, and
propagandists used the same literary allusion for Protestants during the French Reformation.The Catholic theologian and Sorbonne professor Antoine de Mouchy argued that Protestants
should be burned (as were Jews for poisoning the wells during the reign of Philippe V) for
poisoning the souls with false doctrine.125Two months after the Edict of Saint-Germain,
Simon Vigor gave a sermon warning his flock in the end they [the Huguenots] willkill you,
either by poison or by some other means.126By associating Protestants with a long list of
heretics, Catholic polemicists sought to justify their persecution, as part of centuries of
characterization of heretics that had become ingrained in the culture of western
Christendom.127
The conciliatory policies and new edicts of Catherine de Medici allowed Protestant
groups to gather more openly. With Huguenots no longer forced to sneak around in the dark,
Catholic antagonists found it increasingly difficult to level accusations of blood sacrifice and
124Racaut,Hatred in Print, 59 referencing Erasmusliber de sarcienda Ecclesia concorida deque sedandisopinionum dissidiis(Basel 1533).
125Racaut,Hatred in Print, 57.126Diefendorf,Beneath the Cross, 156.127Racaut,Hatred in Print, 60.
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poisonings against them. Nevertheless, Catholic leaders had succeeded in firmly planting an
image of Huguenots as monsters in the minds of much of the Catholic populace and had built
up a repertory of accusations to evidence Gods displeasure at the presence of the heretics.
Simon Vigor like most preachers of the time interpreted natural disasters, droughts, and the
birth of misshapen monsters as warnings to return to the true doctrine.128An outbreak of
plague occurring in Lyon in 1564 offered the Jesuit preacher Edmond Auger an opportunity
to remind the Lyonnais how they had suffered under Huguenot occupation only a year
before.129Priests were instrumental in encouraging violence by interpreting adverse events as
signs of Gods displeasure over a lack of commitment in battling heresy. In 1577, priestsblamed the defeat of French forces at the Battle of Saint Quentin on Gods wrath over the
presence of heretics in the realm.130Preachers successfully entwined the humiliating defeat
with anxiety arising from the spectacle of a growing Huguenot community. These tensions
built up and later that same year the infamous attack at the Rue de St. Jacques took place.
By demonizing the Protestant faith, Catholics hoped that their audience would remain
within the folds of the Church and that they could lessen the evangelical movements spread.
The violent polemic of Catholics focused on recurrent themes that appealed to a demand
from the Catholic community and enjoyed relative success.131 Beyond blaming Huguenots
for bringing disaster to France, the Catholic clergy argued that Protestant teachings feminized
128Barbara B. Diefendorf, Simon Vigor: A Radical Preacher in Sixteenth-Century Paris, The Sixteenth CenturyJournal18, No. 3 (Autumn 1987): 403, http://www.jstor.org/stable/2540725 (accessed Apr. 7, 2010).
129Jean-Pierre Gutton,La socit et les pauvres: L'exemple de la gnralit de Lyon 1534-1789 (Paris: Socitd'Edition Les Belles Lettres, 1970), 171-172.
130Davis, Society and Culture in Early Modern France, 167 quoting Jean CrespinsHistoire des martyrs(Geneva,1585).
131Racaut,Hatred in Print, 48.
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society, and attacked the slanderous nature of Huguenot women and the chaos that such
women brought upon the community.
Protestant Women and the Feminization of Society
Catholic polemics attacked Protestant women for a perceived degradation in morality
that they claimed initiated with a rejection of the Virgin Mary. Literacy especially among
Protestant females remained particularly low, causing Huguenot women to attend reading
circles. These circles gathered men and women, often from different families together to
listen to vernacular readings of the Scriptures. Although Catholic women surely attendedliterary circles, the illegality of Protestant texts coupled with coed clandestine meetings
encouraged tales of less than scrupulous encounters. At such secret night meetings, Catholics
accused women of giving themselves freely to men in order to win over converts to the new
religion. The Provinsspriest Claude Haton described Lutheran husbands unashamed